The footsteps kept coming.
Slow. Heavy.Each step pressed into the wood with a wet, dragging sound… as if whoever was walking had just climbed out of the ocean.
Arin backed away from the staircase, his breath sharp and shallow.
The lighthouse light was dead.His flashlight flickered weakly, struggling against the darkness that felt thick enough to choke.
The footsteps reached the curve in the stairs—the point where a person should become visible.
But nothing appeared.
The steps continued, one after another, closer… closer… but the space remained empty.The sound was there. But no body cast it.
Arin's voice cracked."Who's there?!"
A soft whisper came from above.
Not one voice.Many. Layered. Interwoven.
"We are."
Arin's knees weakened.
He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the logbook on the floor. His trembling hand reached for the brass key he'd found earlier—it felt warmer now, almost pulsing with heat, as if reacting to whatever crawled down the stairs.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence pressed in on all sides.
Then—a single bare footprint appeared on the step above him.Wet. Fresh. Invisible toes sinking into the wood.
Another one appeared below it.Then another.
Something unseen was walking toward him.
Arin scrambled back, knocking over a metal lantern. It clattered loudly, echoing through the tower. And in that echo—he heard breathing.
Slow. Deep. Right behind him.
He spun around.
Nothing.
But the air was colder.And thicker.And for the first time, Arin realized the lighthouse didn't just house something.
It fed something.
He lifted the flashlight and forced himself to look up the stairwell.
A shape flickered for a split second.
A tall, thin silhouette…dripping…head tilted unnaturally sideways…eyes hollow and glinting like wet glass.
The light died before he could see more.
Arin bolted for the exit.
He threw himself against the door—it held, refusing to open. He shoved again, harder, the lighthouse groaning in protest.
A whisper brushed the back of his neck:
"He locked it."
Arin froze.
"Locked… what?" he whispered.
The voices answered together, a chorus of drowned throats:
"Your way out."
Arin's flashlight flickered back on—for one horrifying instant.
Because written on the inside of the steel door, in deep scratches that dripped with salty water, was a message he hadn't seen when he entered:
IT OPENED FOR YOU.IT WILL NOT OPEN AGAIN.
The footsteps resumed.
Descending.
Slow.
Hungry.
Coming directly toward him.
Arin pressed his back against the sealed door, clutching the brass key, feeling it burn against his skin.
The whisper came again—this time from the bottom of the stairs.
"Go up… if you want to live."
Arin stared at the spiraling dark above him.
Going up meant entering the heart of the lighthouse.
The lantern room.
The place the old keeper warned against.
But staying here meant facing whatever invisible thing stood inches away.
Arin swallowed.
Then he placed his foot on the first step.
The lighthouse exhaled.